April 27, 2009

Had the states not decided to make license plates a forum for a sometimes comical array of messages, the “Choose Life” cases would easy. But many states have turned their motor vehicle departments into a kind of souvenir shop. They may also have given up the right to decide what gets sold in them.

Mm... yes... it's called "free speech," and much of it is foolish and/or opinionated. Religion is one more category of expression. Deal with it.

Ahh Mr. Galbriath, such refreshing naivete! Yes, there was a day once, long ago, when the government believed it had limitations and where there was a difference between allowing an activity to remain legal and supporting that activity.

But those days are long gone. In today's hyper-regulatory nanny-state, to permit is to promote. Government, by embracing its greedy power-mad inner child lo these many years, has put itself in this position.

You betcha, Joseph. I think you'd be surprised at how many conservatives support gay marriage (probably as many conservatives as liberals), especially the under-35 crowd. But mostly their priorities are elsewhere so they don't talk much about it. The ones who feel strongly are the ones who oppose.

Focus on the demographics--full gay rights will happen even if it means waiting for some of the old fogeys to die off. That's how movements win--not by changing the minds of the fully grown, but by capturing the youth and waiting for the oldsters to die.

Why does "Choose Life" raise any establishment clause issues at all? The pro-life position isn't an inherently religious one, even though most of the people who hold it are religious. There are pro-life atheists, too.

I wish more conservatives would adopt your thinking that to permit is not to promote with respect to gay rightsAllowing a tax payer to pay for a slogan on his or her license plate is analogous to extending the legal recognition (and benefits) of marriage to same sex couples?

Sorry, it's not a bad point but I'm not sure of it.

One is a neutral or passive act and the other is a active or positive one.

How did "specialty plates" morph into "vanity plates" which are something quite different.

perhaps the point being made here is that the options avaiable for specialty plates are limited (is "choose death" an option? probably not) and that might be the rub.

vanity plates "deerGod" or "hotshorts" are purely elective and can come in nearly any combination that fits. They are not the same.

let's say you lived in S.Carolina and the choices for specialty plates were "in god we trust", "embrace life" or the SC state name. Then, don't you have a case or a potential? its either the state (netural) or a "conviction" that you might not share.

My opinion as a pro-life conservative is that since the government cannot reasonably create plates for every cause or for every position on every issue, states are implicitly supporting the positions of each plate design they authorize. Unless a state can afford to authorize one-off custom plates, supplying certain specialty plates and not others will be viewed as an endorsement of a particular view. I wish the DMV’s would just go back to a few value-neutral designs to choose from.

I agree with Revenant and AJLynch. There is nothing remotely "religious" about "Choose Life." The slogan doesn't even mean that you should oppose abortion rights. There are plenty of people who claim to be "personally opposed" to abortion while supporting its availability, and surely they can be said to have "chosen life," and in some way to want others to do the same, without mandating that their choice be everyone's choice. Nor, of course, are the only objections to abortion religious ones.

When I was a teenager I had a vanity plate that read, "THINK." (I know, I know. Embarrassingly arrogant in retrospect.)

One day I accidentally cut off a man riding a motorcycle. He read my plate and pulled up next to me to yell something like, "Think! Maybe you should take your own damn advice!" I laughed because he was right, and I knew that I so had it coming.

Mariner: What DMV is really going to want to approve a slogan such as "Embrace Death" even if it enjoys enough support to make it profitable? There are plenty of people who could come up with distasteful, yet legal slogans or positions to put on license plates.

It should be clear from the lawsuits surrounding these plates that getting a plate approved is not simply a matter of having enough public support. States don't want to make available controversial plates, but not providing them, especially if there is enough support for them puts them in the awkward position of limiting First Amendment rights

The solution is to get the government out of the business of creating position plates and leave that to the bumper sticker industry.

We don't have a constitutional right to specialty plates, but we do have a constitutional right to free speech.

When the practical matter of appearing to sanction one position to the exclusion of another through the determination of which plates will be made available runs up against free speech concerns, removing a non-fundamental and ultimately unnecessary government function seems like the obvious solution, especially since the market can handle controversial speech with much less difficulty than the government.

I agree with Kylos. I don't see why states should be in this business. It forces the DMV to determine which political statements are worthy of being available on the plates they produce.

And if you are allowed to have a pro-life message but not allowed to have a pro-choice message, it seems to me the pro-free speech forces should be lining up with the people who object to these plates.

If this was some government service that was really better performed by the government, I'd be more sympathetic, but guess I don't see what the real value is in having these political messages on your plates. Can't you just get a bumper sticker? That would take care of the inevitable problem of the government approving or disapproving political messages.

Choose life is a religion based thought.That's because it says to choose life for weak and helpless Humans in mortal danger of being ex-terminated. Only those holding a sincere respect for the opinions of the Creator God of the Human species, has a dog in this fight. If this Tag referred to Choose Life for Whales, then it would not be controversial. But this tag as written is controversial to the Kill the Inconvient Humans crowd which notices that they are being called out. Before you ignore this fight, I suggest you determine how you ever became convenient enough to deserve birth here on Gods's green earth. Then pass it along.

I think the issue of gay rights is a little more involved than this license plate issue. First, I'd separate gay marriage from other gay rights issues. On issues such as hospital visitation (and the very legality of homosexuality), gay people should not be treated any differently than heterosexual people. However (and I hope not to hijack the thread with this discussion), traditional marriage does serve a purpose from the government's perspective that homosexual marriage does not, which is the promotion of unions for the procreation and stable upbringing of future generations. Without the possibility of procreation, gay unions do not provide any benefit to society.

But, in general, I think we would agree that, too often, government is wielded as a club against political adversaries instead of protecting individual liberty.

Only for religious people, and not for all of them. There are entirely secular reasons for believing that human life is worthy of protection. One need not believe in a god or gods in order to believe that killing babies is morally wrong.

As for Beth's question about pro-choice plates, my understanding is that the government is allowed to favor one political viewpoint over another in official documents. It just can't do so with religious views. The Constitution forbids the establishment of religion, not the establishment of political positions.

Kylos: My analogy to gay rights was mostly motivated by frequently seeing conservative commenters invoke the idea that allowing gays to marry inherently promotes homosexuality, when in fact its just recognizing the reality of how different people are living. So, I seized on Tim Maguire's now deleted comment which said something along the lines of "to permit is not to promote" from a conservative perspective. I acknowledge its an imperfect analogy.

But I do object to your statement that "Without the possibility of procreation, gay unions do not provide any benefit to society." The government interest in marriage is not limited to procreation. I could say lots on this subject but I'll keep it short. Many people marry with no intention of procreating. See, e.g., Althouse and Meade (I apologize if my assumption there is misplaced). And there is a significant (and conservative) government interest in stable families and households whether they involve kids or not.

Joseph: You're right, it's more complicated than the simple case I presented. I could go on, but I just wanted to point out that your analogy didn't fully apply. I don't want to hijack this thread, though, so I'll limit my discussion on this matter to what I've already said.

Revenant...The point is that Convenient humans are protected for many reasons and Inconvenient humans are not protected unless there is an authority that will order it. Morality has to come from either a simple cost benefit analysis (convenient vel non) or from a Person making a personal decision to intervene and to save an inconvenient Life from the will of the killers who "Own" it. The Person making that decision we call God.

Morality has to come from either a simple cost benefit analysis (convenient vel non) or from a Person making a personal decision to intervene and to save an inconvenient Life from the will of the killers who "Own" it. The Person making that decision we call God.

@Pogo I used to have a license plate with LX6711 -- something like that. I liked it so much that I thought I'd buy it as a vanity plate. It seemed luxurious and lucky. Memorable too. I couldn't tell you what my current license number is, but that old one I'll always remember.

The whole thing of these "special" plates is ridiculous in the first place. All it is, is a money sink. A way for the State to make more money.

License plates are meant to identify your vehicle in case of accident or crime. PERIOD.

If you want to customize your car or use it as an advertisement for your personal opinions....get some fuzzy dice, decorate your back window with plastic aborted fetuses on a string or purple dingle balls, plastic Jesus on the dashboard, Satan painted on the grill of your truck, sexy hula girs on the dash, pinstripe your car, put neons under the carriage, buy bumper stickers.....WHAT EVER!

Do they make an array of license plates available? So they have them, also, for the counter position? No? Well, I don't know the all law involved but it sounds like a crock.

So if they wanted to issue a Martin Luther King stamp, they'd have to issue a Bull Connor stamp too?

The government is allowed to take a position on political issues. It is allowed to be 100% anti-racism, or pro-Iraq-war, or anti-drug, or anti-abortion, or pro-choice. Whatever it wants.

It can't forbid you from expressing disagreement with it, but it can refuse to give you government resources with which to express that disagreement. One more reason why a socialist government would be a dangerous one; lack of private resources means lack of freedom.

I have a breast cancer plate, and in addition to having the pink ribbon, it has the distinct outline of boobies on it.http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=629103876#/photo.php?pid=1718078&id=629103876

The Kentucky version of the "Global Warming is a Scam" license plate is the black "Friends of Coal" license plate, which is pretty sharp looking.